Gluten-Free, Vegetarian Chicken Pot Pies

Back in our carnivorous days, this recipe from Sunset Magazine was one of our favorites. Single-serving chicken pot pies, full of steamy vegetables and a savory sauce, was a delicious winter-time feast. Since then, we have forsaken the meat and the gluten-full flour. Based on those wonderful Smart Strips, the faux chicken strips from Lightlife, we have recreated this dish to fit our dietary needs. I believe that none of the flavor was lost.

For the biscuit topping, I used this recipe from the Gluten-Free Cooking School. The only change I made was to replace the egg with a flaxseed "egg". I must admit that this recipe created a dough that was too wet, but that just may be something peculiar about my ingredients. Next time, I will decrease the amount of liquid.

Ingredients

2 ½ c chicken broth
3 carrots, peeled and finely chopped
2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and finely chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
4 T olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
12 small cremini or button mushrooms, finely chopped
1 t chopped fresh thyme
5 T gluten-free flour, like brown rice flour
1 c milk
¼ t nutmeg
2 t salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 t finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 ½ c Smart Strips chicken, chopped
¼ c frozen sweet peas

Steps

1. In a medium saucepan over high heat, bring chicken stock to a boil. Add carrots, potatoes, and celery. Lower heat to medium and cook until vegetables are tender, 5 to 7 minutes. Drain vegetables, reserving stock; set both aside separately.

2. In a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and cook until golden, 6 to 8 minutes. Add mushrooms and cook 5 minutes. Add fresh thyme and the gluten-free flour and cook 2 minutes. Slowly add milk, whisking constantly, until combined, then add stock and cook, stirring often, until mixture thickens, 8 to 10 minutes. Season with nutmeg, 1 tsp. salt, and pepper to taste. Add parsley, "chicken", cooked vegetables, and peas and divide filling evenly among 6 or 7 ovenproof containers (8 to 10 oz. each), leaving the top ¼ inch unfilled.

3. Preheat oven to 425°. Make the biscuit dough according to the recipe. Drop the dough on top of the chicken mixture evenly, lightly smoothing down the tops.

4. Put potpies on a cookie sheet and bake until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbling, 17 to 22 minutes.

Bumper Crop Cooking

Bumper-crop recipes are those that focus on a large amount of one or more particular ingredients. As an avid gardener, I sometimes find myself in this situation: "Dang, I have twenty pounds of tomatoes that are going bad!"

Of course you could employ numerous techniques to preserve such bumper crops, like canning, freezing, drying, or giving it away. But my favorite remedy is just to cook some dish that features that ingredient.

There are plenty of dishes you might like to make but won't because it might be cost prohibitive to buy such a large amount at the store. A perfect example is pesto. It uses a lot of fresh basil, and this herb tends to have a premium price at the store. But if you have a basil plant or two that starting to suffer from the cold weather, why not whip up a batch of pesto?

For the recipe below, it's not that my apple trees suddenly matured in the middle of winter and dropped a load of apples. Rather, we bought a big bag of apples cheap, but they were getting a  little old.

So I found a recipe that called for 10 cups of chopped apples. In typical SAD fashion, this recipe had way too much sugar in it. It read like a candy recipe. So I toned down the sweetness by more than half, added some additional spices, and made gluten-free. This dish can be served hot or cold, and for any meal. It could be a dessert, but I actually eat it for breakfast.

Apple Crisp

Ingredients

10 c all-purpose apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1/4 c white sugar
1 T all-purpose flour, or gluten free flour blend
2 t ground cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg
juice from 1 lemon

1 c quick-cooking oats
1 c all-purpose flour or gluten free blend
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1/4 t baking powder

1/2 c butter, melted

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degree C).

2. Place the sliced apples in a 9x13 inch pan. Mix the white sugar, 1 tablespoon flour, ground cinnamon, and nutmeg together, and sprinkle over apples. Pour lemon juice evenly over all.

3. Combine the oats, 1 cup flour, brown sugar, baking powder, and melted butter together. Crumble evenly over the apple mixture.

4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about 30 minutes.

100th Post!

This recipe represents the one-hundreth post to the Evolving Palate. Since it's beginning in February of 2009, we have been bringing to you (hopefully) tasty, healthy dishes that eschew all the bad things in the SAD and instead using wholesome and natural ingredients. We cater to those with dairy and wheat allergies, and lean towards vegetarianism. We like to explore exotic foods across the globe, but also like to reinvent American classics.

Postings have been light these past few months due to other commitments, but rest assured that we're still cooking. The challenge is to find time to type up what we're eating. 

What better way to celebrate 100 posts than with a cookie recipe! The following recipe combines my two favorite dessert ingredients: chocolate and coffee. I found this recipe in a King Arthur Flour catalog and modified it. Gone is the gluten flour, I reduced the amount of sugar and increased the amount of coffee. For the gluten free flour, if you don't have a favorite blend, you can use the one mentioned in this recipe. I find a rice flour-based blend to work best.

Mocha Cookies

Ingredients

½ c unsalted butter (1 stick)

¾ c brown sugar

¾ t baking powder

2 t dark coffee, finely ground

½ t salt

2 eggs, or flaxseed "eggs"

2 t vanilla extract

⅔ c unsweetened powdered cocoa

1¾ c gluten free flour blend

1 c semi-sweet chocolate chips

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly spray oil on two cookie sheets.

2. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, baking powder, coffee, and salt with a blender. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth.

3. Stir in the cocoa powder, then the flour. The dough will be slightly stiff. Mix in the chocolate chips.

4. Scoop out a tablespoon of dough and roll into a ball. Place on the cookie sheet and press down slightly.

5. Bake for 13 minutes. Remove from oven and let the cookies cool on the pan. 

Moroccan Lentils

Moroccan food is one of my favorites. The dishes are fresh and festive. But what I like most are the simple dishes, those with just a few ingredients showcasing a vegetable or bean. The following recipe is a simple lentil dish that is full of warm spices. It is a common village meal, and is best eaten with bread.

The spice blend used here is ras el hanout. If you can't find this in your grocery, you can make it yourself. I tell you how in this article.

The directions below make use of a pressure cooker. If you don't have one, you can make this in a regular pot; just double the cooking time to about 30 minutes.

Berber Lentils

Ingredients

2 T olive oil + 1 T butter
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 t ras el hanout
1 t sugar
1¼ c green or brown lentils, sorted and rinsed
2 c water (2½ c if not using a pressure cooker)
handful of cilantro or parsley

Steps

1. Heat the oil and butter in the pressure cooker or saucepan. Stir in the onion and garlic and cook 2-3 minutes, until they begin to color. Stir in the ras el hanout and sugar.

2. Add the lentils and stir well to coat. Add the water. If using a pressure cooker, bring to high pressure and maintain for 15 minutes. If using a regular pot, bring to a boil, then gently simmer for about 35 minutes.

3. Season to taste with salt and pepper and sprinkle cilantro or parsley over them.

Faux Meat

One of the goals of Evolution Kitchen is to adapt meat dishes to vegetarian. A reader once asked why would a vegetarian want to eat food that tastes like meat. Certainly there are those who truly detest the taste and/or texture of meat, but I believe many vegetarians are that way based on religious, health, economic, or moral reasons; it has nothing to do with disliking the taste of meat.


Vegetarians have a large arsenal of faux meats to get them by. There is tofu, beans, tempeh, TVP, seiten, and a variety of packaged foods that resemble meat in flavor and texture but are completely animal free. Most of these, however, have wheat gluten in them, so my wife can't eat them, but there is one product from Lightlife called Smart Strips she can eat.


These come in 6-oz packages of chicken and beef, and they fill in quite well for meat in recipes. They have good flavor and they readily brown in a skillet. We recently picked up a package of beef and I wanted to try it out. So I found the following recipe in a Carribean cookbook, which I modified to use the strips, plus some other modifications.

Pepper Steak in Sherry Cream Sauce

Ingredients

1 Pkg Smart Strips, beef flavor
½ t Jamaican jerk seasoning
¼ t cayenne pepper
1 t paprika
½ t chili powder
1 small onion, sliced thin
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 T olive oil, separated
¼ c sherry
2 T sour cream
3 T water
salt and pepper to taste

Steps

1. mix the spices (jerk seasoning, cayenne, paprika, and chili powder) together in a bowl. Add the beef strips and stir to blend. Set aside for about 15 minutes.

2. Heat a skillet over medium-high heat and add 2 T olive oil. Saute the beef strips until browned. Remove from heat back to the bowl.

3. Add the remaining 1 T oil to the skillet and lower heat to medium. Add the onion and garlic and saute for 3-5 minutes until onion is soft and slightly golden.

4. Add the sherry and simmer for 5 minutes.

5. Mix the sour cream and water together, then add to the pan. Stir well to combine. Add the beef strips back to the skillet and cook another 2-3 minutes to heat through.

6. Serve over rice.

Kefta With Egg and Tomato

This dish is North Africa's version of fast food. It is predominantly sold in train and bus stations. It is cooked on the spot and eaten right out of the pan with a chunk of bread. Despite the eggs in the dish, it's not meant for breakfast. We eat this as a light dinner.

The key spice ingredient in here is the ras el hanout, a delicious spice blend from North Africa and the Middle East. If you can't find any, you can easily make it yourself. I have modified an old article on spice blends to include this fabulous blend: spice blends.

Typically this calls for meatballs made from ground lamb, but I have adapted the recipe to use soy wadi, those great little meat-like chunks first discussed here. Instead of making meatballs from scratch, I use wadi cooked in a strong broth. In fact, I used the Shish Kabob recipe as the basis for the kefta.

Kefta with Egg and Tomato

Ingredients

Prepared wadi from this recipe
4 eggs
1 t ground cinnamon
parsley
2 T olive oil
1 14-oz can chopped tomatoes, undrained
2 t sugar
1 t ras el hanout
salt and black pepper to taste

Steps

1. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy skillet. Fry the wadi shish kabobs until browned all over.

2. Stir in the tomatoes, sugar, and ras el hanout. Bring to a boil and cook for a few minutes to reduce the liquid. Season with salt and pepper.

3. make room in the mixture to add the eggs. Crack open the eggs in the spaces. Cover the pan, reduce heat, and cook for several minutes until eggs have reached the desired doneness.

4. Sprinkle parsley liberally and serve. Goes well with chunks of crusty bread.

Sweet Potato Soup

We're in full soup mode here at Evolution Kitchen, as Old Man Winter has wrapped his icy fingers around our home. We like a lot of different kinds of soup, depending on our mood. Sometimes we only want a thin, brothy soup. And sometimes we want a thicker, heartier soup. 

The following soup is more in the hearty category. It is quite creamy and has an excellent flavor.

Creamy Sweet Potato Soup

Ingredients

2 T oil

1 onion, chopped

2 small celery stalks, chopped

1 medium leek, sliced (white and pale green parts only)

1 large garlic clove, chopped

1 ½ lbs red-skinned sweet potatoes, peeled, cut into 1-inch pieces (about 5 cups)

4 c chicken stock

1 cinnamon stick

¼ t ground nutmeg

1½ c  coconut milk

Steps

1. Heat the oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion, saute about 5 minutes. Add celery and leek, saute about 5 minutes. Add garlic, saute about 2 minutes.

2. Add sweet potatoes, chicken stock, cinnamon stick, and nutmeg; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered until potatoes are tender (about 20 minutes).

3. Remove cinnamon stick and discard. Working in batches, puree soup in blender until smooth. Return to pot.

4. Add coconut milk and stir over medium-low heat until heated through. Season soup to taste with salt and pepper.

Kuku

This delicious dish from Kenya may have a funny name, but it is a seriously scrumptious meal. It originally called for chicken, but I have vegetarianized it with those Smart Chicken strips you buy at the store. You can get away with using just one package, but I find that my family picks out all the strips to nibble on, leaving little left for the actual dish, so adding 2 packages may work better.

Kuku

Ingredients

½ c dried mung beans

1 (or 2) pkgs Smart Chicken Strips

½ t ground ginger

salt and pepper

2 T olive oil

1 large onion, finely chopped

4 medium tomatoes, or 1 can diced tomatoes, drained

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 jalapeño, seeded and finely chopped

1 t lemon juice

1 c coconut milk

Steps

1. Either boil the mung bean for 35 minutes, or pressure cook. Drain.

2. While the mung beans are cooking, season the "chicken" strips with the ground ginger and a little salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a large pan over medium heat and brown the chicken strips. Transfer to a plate and set aside.

3. In the same pan, fry the onions and garlic for 5 minutes, then add the chopped tomatoes and chili and cook another 2 minutes, stirring often. Add the mung beans and lemon juice.

4. Pour the coconut milk into the pan. Simmer for 5 minutes, then add the chicken strips. Simmer for 10 minutes.

Kenyan Maharagwe

This is winter comfort food at its best. Maharagwe simply means "beans", and this dish is loaded with them. If you used beans cooked from dried and use fresh tomatoes instead of canned, the fresh flavor really shines through, since this stew is not cooked too long. It's wonderful served over rice.

Maharagwe

Ingredients

2 T olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
2 c cooked red kidney beans
1 15-ounce can coconut milk
2 tomatoes, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced
¼ t ground cumin
¼ t ground cardamom
1 t curry powder
¼ t turmeric
½ c chopped fresh cilantro or parsley
2 t honey
¼ t white pepper

Steps

1. In a large soup pot, heat olive oil and sauté onion and bell pepper until just tender.

2. Stir in kidney beans, coconut milk, tomatoes, garlic, chile pepper, cumin, cardamom, curry, and turmeric. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer, stirring frequently, for 10-15 minutes, until flavors blend.

3. Stir in cilantro/parsley and honey, and season with salt and white pepper. Serve hot.

Chewy Chocolate-Cherry Cookies

These cookies are fairly decadent and rich with chocolate, cherries, and sugar. This recipe has been adapted from a Cooking Light recipe from years ago. I have made in gluten-free, removed the egg, and cut back on the butter.

One thing I have noticed a lot of recently is the addition of baking soda in recipes that have no acid in them, like these cookies. To my knowledge, baking soda needs an acid to react. Since my wife's taste buds are sensitive to baking soda, I try to leave it out, especially when there's no acid to make it worthwhile.

Chewy Chocolate-Cherry Cookies

Ingredients

1 c gluten-free flour blend (rice based blend is best)

⅓ c unsweetened cocoa

¾ t baking powder

¼ t salt

1 c sugar

¼ c butter, softened

1 t vanilla extract

1 flax seed "egg"

⅔ c dried cherries

3 T semisweet chocolate chips

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 350°.

2. Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt, stirring with a whisk. Place sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer on high speed until well blended. Add vanilla and "egg"; beat well. With mixer on low speed, gradually add flour mixture. Beat until just combined. Fold in the cherries and chocolate chips.

3. Drop by tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet coated with cooking spray. Bake for 12 minutes or until set. Remove from oven; cool on pan 5 minutes. Remove from pans; cool completely on wire racks.

Gluten Free Muffins

Quick breads are great because they're, well, quick, and they're bread. I find yeasted gluten-free breads are quite finicky, but quick breads made with baking soda/powder have a much higher success rate.

Lately, I have abused my family with batch after batch of muffins while I tried to perfect my muffin recipe. I started with a basic mix from Bette Hagman's book The Gluten-Free Gourmet Bakes Bread: More Than 200 Wheat-Free Recipes, but one thing I noticed about her recipes is that she relies a lot on tapioca and cornstarch/arrowroot. I have not been able to find much information on these flours, but I doubt that these simple starches have any more nutrition that plain old white flour.

So I have been trying to modify her recipes somewhat with healthier flours. For her muffin recipe, I use oat flour as the base, and the touch of potato flour (*flour*, not starch) is crucial for getting a good texture.

Consider this recipe a starting point for other additions like nuts, dried fruits, or whatever.

Gluten Free Muffins

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients

Dry

1 c oat flour

⅓ c coconut flour

1 T potato flour

½ c tapioca flour

1 T baking powder

½ t salt

⅓ c sugar

Wet

3 T ground flaxseed meal

6 T warm water

4 T oil

1 c milk

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Grease 12 muffin tins.

2. Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

3. Combine the wet ingredients in a medium bowl.

4. Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture. Stir until just moistened, no more.

5. Evenly fill muffin cups.

6. Bake for 22-25 minutes. Insert a toothpick to make sure insides are done.

Apple Oven Pancake

Sometimes I get tired of plain old pancakes. The recipe presented here is a nice twist. It adds a lot of apple and more egg than usual, so it's almost like a pancake fritatta. Make this some weekend morning when you have some extra time. I usually make this for myself with normal flour, but you can easily substitute gluten-free flour.

One hungry person could eat this, or it could be a light breakfast for two.

Apple Oven Pancake

Ingredients

2 T butter

2 T brown sugar

¼ t cinnamon

1 small apple, peeled and sliced thin

2 eggs

½ c flour

½ c milk

¼ t salt

Steps

1. Heat oven to 400˚. Melt butter in pie plate in oven. Brush butter on side of pie plate.

2. Sprinkle brown sugar and cinnamon evenly over melted butter. Arrange sliced apple over sugar.

3. Beat eggs slightly in medium bowl. Add rest of the ingredients and beat until just mixed (do not overbeat).

4. Pour batter over apples.

5. Bake 30 minutes. Immediately loosen edge of pancake and turn upside down over serving plate. Sprinkle lightly with powdered sugar.

Dressing Up Veggies

(November will be a light month for postings from Evolution Kitchen. I have entered the National Novel Writing Month "contest" of writing a 50,000 word novel in a month. So, that has been keeping my fingers busy, but I'll try to squeak out a recipe here and there. Such as this one...)

I didn't like vegetables much as a kid, probably because it was mostly the frozen or canned variety heated up and dumped in a serving bowl. Add a little salt and pepper, and that was basically it.

Nowadays I eat fresh vegetables as much as possible. And although some vegetables can be satisfying just by themselves, most will benefit with a sauce.

This sauce is a intense blend of salty and tart, with a hint of sweet and the unique flavor of dark sesame oil. This sauce is wonderful warm and served on just about any vegetable, but we like it on steamed broccoli. "Drizzle" is the key word with this sauce, not "douse", "dump", or "drown" as most restaurants seem to do.

Warm Soy Dressing and Broccoli

Ingredients

1 - 2 lbs fresh broccoli

¼ c soy sauce

¼ c lemon juice

2 T rice wine vinegar

2½ T rice wine, or sake

2 T water

1 T sugar

2 t sesame oil

1 garlic clove, sliced

Steps

1. Heat all the sauce ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir to dissolve the sugar and simmer 5 minutes. Serve over steamed broccoli.

Beans and Rice

Beans and rice are a great combination, both nutritionally and for taste. There is a world of flavors you can have with these two ingredients. Sometimes we make slightly sweetened beans to have for breakfast. This dish, however, may not make the best early morning dish. It calls for the sultry and rich black beans, plus a tangy twist provided by balsamic vinegar. Add a little avocado to calm everything down and you end up with a dish that we eat as a meal in itself. It doesn't last long in our house.

Cuban Beans and Rice

Ingredients

2 T lemon juice

2 T olive oil

1 T balsamic vinegar

1 t ground cumin

1 t salt

¼ t pepper

3 c cooked rice

1 15-oz can of black beans, drained and rinsed, or 1 c dried black beans cooked

2 medium tomatoes, cored, seeded, and chopped

2 T fresh parsley, chopped

1 firm-ripe avocado

Steps

1. In a large bowl, mix lemon juice, olive oil, vinegar, cumin, salt, and pepper. Stir in the rice, beans, tomatoes, and parsley.

2. Cut the avocado in half, pop out the pit, and carefully scoop out the insides. Cut into dice and gently stir into the bean and rice mixture.

3. Serve chilled, room temperature, or heated up.

Lentil Burgers

I love veggies burgers, anything to play host to yummy condiments like pickles, ketchup, and mustard. The trick of a good veggie burger is to get the right flavor and texture to make you want to eat them again. This recipe is great of flavor, and ok on texture. They are a little soft inside, but the outside gets nice and crispy on the grill. Be sure to use a soft bun; otherwise the innards will squish out when chomping down on a hard bun.

In order to handle the rigors of grill cooking, these patties need to firm up in the freezer for a while, so plan your time accordingly.

Lentil Burgers

Ingredients

½ c dried lentils

2 T olive oil

1 small onion, chopped

1 small red bell pepper, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 15-oz can chickpeas, rinsed and drained, or 1 c dried chickpeas cooked

½ dried parsley, or 1 c fresh

2 eggs, or flax seed "eggs"

2 t ground cumin

1 t ground coriander

1 t salt

½ t ground black pepper

1 c oat bran

1 T potato flour

1 large carrot, grated

Steps

1. Cook lentils according to package directions. Drain.

2. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Saute onion and bell pepper until soft, about 7 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another minute.

3. In a food processor, combine the chickpeas, parsley, eggs, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, and the onion mixture. Blend for 2 minutes, or until very smooth.

4. Dump blended mixture into a large bowl, add the carrots and lentils, and mix well. Shape into 8 patties and lay on wax paper on a large cookie sheet. Place the sheet in the freezer for at least 4 hours.

5. When ready to cook, preheat grill and take patties out of the freezer. Don't defrost first, place frozen patties on the grill and cook 6-10 minutes on each side. Serve on buns or pitas.

Mushrooms in a Mustard-Wine Sauce

We eat a lot of mushrooms, much to my daughter's chagrin. If you really think about it, mushrooms are gross. I've seen enough wild mushrooms in the forest to start me thinking, "Do I really eat stuff related to this?"

But mushrooms do have nutritional value: They have a high selenium content, reported to help prevent prostate cancer, and they contain a fair amount of B-vitamins. Mushrooms also taste great if done right. So it's best to forget where mushrooms come from and what some of their uglier cousins look like.

The nice thing about mushrooms is that can readily adapt to just about any flavor. We typically mushrooms in an oriental setting, but this recipe is somewhat different. The mushrooms are cooked in a mustard and wine sauce, which gives it a tangy but rich flavor.

Mushrooms in a Mustard-Wine Sauce

Ingredients

Sauce:

1 T Dijon mustard

2 T Worcestershire sauce

2 T brown sugar

¾ c dry red wine

1 T soy sauce

ground pepper

Veggies:

1 oz dried shiitake mushrooms

½ c boiling water

1 lb mushrooms

1½ T oil

1 onion, diced

salt to taste

1 large red bell pepper, diced

½ block of firm tofu, cubed

Steps

1. Cover the dried shiitake mushrooms with the boiling water and set aside until they soften, about 10 minutes. Reserve the soaking liquid and cut the hard stems out. Cut the mushrooms into strips.

2. Clean the fresh mushrooms and cut into halves (or quarters if they are big).

3. Heat oil in a large skillet, add the onions and a pinch of salt, and saute over medium heat until translucent, about 3-4 minutes.

4. Add both fresh and dried mushrooms and the peppers and cook a little bit more, stirring often, until the mushrooms begin to darken.

5. Add the sauce and the soaking liquid from the shiitakes. Add the tofu and simmer slowly until the sauce has reduced and thickened, about 40 minutes.

6. Serve in bowls on top of rice or noodles.

Rosemary Sweet Potatoes

Recently, we published a recipe for Roasted Spiced Sweet Potatoes, but here's a slightly different twist on the same theme. That recipe proves that the sweetness goes well with spiciness. This recipe will show how well that sweetness also compliments savory herbs like rosemary.

This is a perfect wintertime dish, mainly because it requires lengthy cooking in a hot oven. Nothing like warming up the house with the mouth-watering fragrance of roasted sweet potatoes!

Rosemary Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients

2 T unsalted butter

2 T olive oil

1 T fresh rosemary, or 2 t dried

3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled

1 t salt

¼ t black pepper

Steps

1. Preheat the oven to 450º. Melt the butter with the olive oil in a small skillet, then add the rosemary. Set aside.

2. Cut the sweet potatoes lengthwise in ½-inch thick wedges and place in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper, and drizzle on the butter mixture. Toss gently.

3. Arrange wedges in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake in the upper part of the over for 10 minutes. Turn over and continue baking another 10 minutes or until the potatoes are slightly browned. Serve hot.

Radishes - Underperformer in the Kitchen

The Western diet doesn't quite know what to do with radishes. Mostly you see them sliced raw in salads. But did you know they can be in a cooked dish with good effect? Although they have that unique "heat", they blend well with other flavors quite well. This dish combines the lowly radish, sugar snap peas, and edamame (young, green soybeans) with a buttery lemon sauce. It's light and refreshing.

Peas, Beans, and Radishes with Lemon Butter

Ingredients

1 lb sugar snap peas, trimmed

1 c shelled frozen edamame

1 T olive oil

2 T shallots, minced

1 bunch radishes, trimmed and thinly sliced

2 t lemon zest

1 T unsalted butter

salt and pepper to taste

Steps

1. Cook peas and edamame in boiling salted water for 5 minutes. Drain and rinse in cold water.

2. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add shallots and saute for 2-3 minutes. Add radishes and continue cooking until just tender, another 2-3 minutes.

3. Add peas and edamame, and saute until hot. Add zest and butter. Season with salt and pepper. Cook while stirring until butter is melted.

Cauliflower-Potato Curry

Nothing livens up boring cauliflower and potatoes like a flavorful curry sauce. This dish is best made in a pressure cooker, which quickly breaks the potato and cauliflower down. But it can be cooked in a large pot or dutch oven; just increase the cooking time.

Cauliflower-Potato Curry

Ingredients

1 large head of cauliflower

2 t oil

2 t whole cumin seeds

1½ c coconut milk

2 T ketchup

1 t ground coriander

2 T curry

¼ t ground cinnamon

¾ t salt

pinch of cayenne

1½ lbs thin-skin potatoes, like Yukon Gold

1 small red bell pepper, diced

Steps

1. Cut the cauliflower into florets no larger than 2 inches wide.

2. Heat oil in a pressure cooker. Sizzle the cumin seeds until they begin to pop, about 5-10 seconds. Carefully add the coconut milk and ketchup. While stirring, sprinkle in the curry powder, coriander, cinnamon, salt, and cayenne.

3. Bring to a boil. Set the potatoes and red bell pepper down into the liquid, then place the cauliflower on top.

4. Lock the lid in place and bring to high pressure. Maintain pressure for 3-6 minutes. Do a quick release of pressure.

5. Carefully open and stir the contents so that the cauliflower breaks up and incorporates into the sauce. Garnish with parsley or cilantro.

Pucker Up With Pomegranate Molasses

Today's exotic ingredient is pomegranate molasses. This is a popular ingredient in the Middle East and it highlights several well-known dishes, such as fesenjan and muhammarah. It is an intensely flavored reduction of pomegranate juice. I don't like to eat pomegranate fruit because of all those dang seeds, but the juice and molasses are delicious: tart and tangy, with a hint of sweetness.

The following dish is really about the sauce. At the core of it is pomegranate molasses, mellowed slightly with nuts. We purchase our molasses at the local Middle Eastern grocery, but you can also get it from Amazon: Pomegranate Molasses - 14 oz.

Since my daughter is allergic to walnuts, I used pecans instead. It still tasted great, so feel free to experiment with the nuts.

This sauce could go over roasted vegetables, or perhaps even over a pasta. In this recipe, I pair it with bland stir-fried tofu pieces.

Tofu with Pomegranate-Walnut Sauce

Ingredients

2 T olive oil

1 package firm tofu, drained and pressed in a towel

½ T olive oil

1 small onion, diced

1 garlic clove, minced

½ c walnuts or pecans, finely chopped

1/8 t cinanamon

½ c water

2 t honey

¼ t salt

Steps

1. Make the tofu: cut tofu block into 5 or 6 thick slabs. Pan fry this in the 2 T olive oil.

2. Make the sauce: Heat the ½ T olive oil in a small skillet. When hot, saute onion and garlic until soft and transparent. Remove from heat.

3. Place nuts, cinnamon, and cooked onions into a blender. Pulse briefly, then add the remaining ingredients and blend for two minutes. Add water to get mixture to desired consistency (it should be thinner than mayonnaise.

4. Serve sauce over tofu, and optionally over rice.